Believe
by Shelba
Summary: How did Scully know something had happened?


(New) Believe  
Category: Missing scene -- Requiem  
by Shelba   
July 18, 2000  
email: Tshelvulcn@aol.com  
MSR, SA, MA   
Spoilers..mild ones for The Blessing Way, Christmas  
Carol, Elegy, All Souls  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just borrowed.Willingly given back. Except Mulder. I will give him back, but I don't have to be happy about it, do I?  
Archive? Sure, if you want it,keep my name and email addy with it - just drop me a note so I can visit.  
Distribution - OK to Gossamer, Ephemeral, Chronicle X   
Summary: How did Scully know that something had happened in   
those Oregon woods?  
Authors note: This is my first fic. The idea came about from a discussion with Elyse, while I was pondering some things for a fic that she is writing.   
Thanks to Nancy - bless you for all your kind help. Any and all errors are mine. Thanks to Yav, PBear, Patty and MJames for kind words of encouragement, and to Kristel, who, while we were knee deep in "Hegira" and "Hollywood Nights" helped me discover my inner Mulder. If there is a cure for that, I don't want it.   
If you have not read Hegira, go. GO. Read Hegira.   
Feedback: YES!!! Please let me know if you liked it. If you hated it, LMK that too. Be nice. Or not. Your choice. But, please let me know what you think.   
  
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Believe  
by Shelba B  
Tshelvulcn@aol.com  
  
A river of soft light from the hallway flowed into the darkness of   
her room. The twitter of call bells, the soft chime of the elevators,   
and the whirring from IV pumps hummed in counterpoint to the   
soft voices of the nurses.   
  
Familiar sounds. Hospital sounds. The electronic cheeps   
of equipment and purposeful murmurs of staff members   
were a soporific for Dr. Dana Scully.  
  
Lost in sleep, her eyes flickered under pale lids. The physician   
in her would note that she was experiencing REM -- a healthy, natural,   
necessary stage of sleep  
  
But what was tearing Scully's soul apart in her dream had little   
to do with health or nature, but was as necessary to her as breathing.   
Dread anchored her to the solid mattress beneath her, for wreathed   
in shadows and churning tendrils of unnatural gold and blue flame,   
Fox Mulder invaded her sleep.   
  
Pain was etched on his gentle face, and his long lean body was   
an island of solidity in a misty glowing sea of light. Strange twisting   
waves caressed and bound him as they twirled around him, hiding   
him, then revealing, only to hide him again.   
  
Her breath caught. 'Come on, Mulder, where are you ... come   
on...There!' Her prayer was answered as he pulsed back into view   
and she found that she could breathe again, but her heart pounded,   
hard and sharp in her breast.   
  
Questions clattered in her mind. Oh God, oh God, is he hurt? She ignored   
the small rational bit of her mind that told her that you cannot check a   
dream person for injury. She forced herself to look. He looked pale,   
but unharmed. Her pulse took on a less frantic pace.  
  
Deep sadness shone from the green-brown of his eyes. Her   
irrational Lover's soul cried at the pain she saw there. She longed   
to reach out and touch his honey-colored skin to ease his pain.   
Her eyes drank him in, willing him to look at her, but his eyes were   
focused on something in the murky darkness that held him. He was   
entranced by something, or someone, that she could not see.   
  
Her stomach clenched with fear. Was Mulder gone? Her arms   
curled protectively around her abdomen. Was this like Ahab? Had   
Mulder come to tell her good-bye? Suddenly bereft, but unable to tear   
her eyes away from him. nonononooo.....  
  
Her eyes closed in an effort to quiet the pounding of her   
heart. She stamped down the fear that while she wasn't looking, he   
had vanished again. She willed herself to look back, praying that   
Mulder was still there.   
  
Her breath caught again. Through the waves of darkness and   
light she could see his face again. A swirling kaleidoscope of love   
and grief mixed with wonder and fear and regret poured from his eyes.  
  
Silently, Mulder reached up and caressed the cross nestling   
against the notch of his throat. When his gravely whisper touched   
her ears, she nearly sobbed with relief. "Scully... I need.... I need   
the strength of your beliefs, Scully."  
  
His image twisted and gleamed in the tears filling her eyes.   
  
"Do you remember, Scully? I do... I stood on a bridge. A bridge  
between worlds. Between worlds... Oh God." Unshed tears roughened   
the silky tones. "Oh, God, if I had understood then. I thought I did.   
I knew that we were bound together, Scully. In a dangerous purpose.   
By love... But you didn't believe." Not a question.   
  
Mulder's eyes looked through her. "Do you now? " How could   
a dream sound so wistful?   
  
She felt herself nodding, aware that it was ridiculous to answer   
a dream figure, but even as she did it, knowing that she could not   
dismiss this --him-- as just a figment of imagination  
  
The honeyed tones continued. "You have't always believed   
in me. In my search. But you always respected the journey."  
  
No. No. She shook her head in mute denial She had always   
believed in him...   
  
"Believe, Scully." He was pleading, now, pain colored his voice   
with darkness. "The journey has changed. Please believe that it   
was not my choice." A slender hand raised in supplication, and   
Scully felt her hand reaching out in sympathy. "I...I don't   
understand so much of what has happened. Light and dark   
weave around ... there is so much to see -- so much that cannot be   
understood." His voice shook a little, belying the stillness of his   
face. "The path has branched."  
  
Scully felt something crack in her soul as she envisioned a   
lone man walking down a twisted path through deep darkness,   
away from her.   
  
His voice dropped to a raspy whisper as the turning, twisting   
light swathed his dark form, and a fear born of wonder and pain   
shone from his eyes. "I can't see the turnings, Scully. I see things   
that I don't understand." A pleading note entered his voice. "Believe   
me, Scully, trust me. I would not do this. I can live without   
your love, if I have to. I can't go on without your belief and trust."   
As quickly as if a switch had been flipped, everything went dark.   
Mulder was gone.   
  
"Mulder!" Gasping in shock, she woke, suddenly aware that   
she had cried aloud.  
  
"Doctor Scully?" The nurse's voice was full of concern. "Are you ok?"   
  
She pulled herself together, and took a deep breath. Shakily,   
she nodded, assuring the nurse that it was just a dream. Dubiously,   
the nurse slowly nodded. "Ok, if you are sure." Smiling, the nurse   
told her that her doctor would be here soon with some test results,   
then she turned and walked away.   
  
Impatiently, Scully slid her legs over the side of the hard mattress,   
relishing the feel of the smooth tiles, as she tested her balance. The   
cool floor did nothing to dispel her heated thoughts. Angrily, she   
scrubbed her face with her hands. A dream. Just a dream. But was it?   
  
She remembered other 'dreams'. Dreams that were not dreams.   
Emily. Begging her to let her go. Ahab, who had come to tell her   
good-bye and had remained mute. Long ago, Mulder shining pale   
against a path of stars. When she was fighting cancer, she had   
seen things that she had not believed. She had not told Mulder of   
that dark time. Mulder had theorized that those who were near   
death themselves could see beyond the veil.   
  
Soft laughter welled up, as she imagined his reaction. If he   
heard her rationally searching dreams for information, Mulder   
would be checking to see if she had been replaced by a clone.   
A Non-Skeptic-Scully-Clone who searched dreams for messages.   
  
Messages. Each of these dreams had carried messages. Mulder   
believed that dreams were answers to questions that we did not   
know how to ask. What question did dream-Mulder bring an   
answer to?   
  
She paced to the window and stared unseeingly into the weak   
morning light. When Mulder had spoken to her from the dark sky,   
his message had been clear, that they were bound together and   
that he was returning. Whether she believed his assertion that   
he had returned from the dead was irrelevant. He had returned.  
  
Tears fled from burning eyes. Acid tears. Tears that tore her heart   
and burned her soul. Was this message less clear? 'I had no choice.   
The path has branched.' In the hallway, outside Skinner's office.   
His shaky voice telling her that it 'ended now'. Dark eyes begging her to understand. Would he return from Oregon and tell her that the  
partnership was over? Their fledging love affair, ended?   
  
She looked past the blinds and watched dark clouds scuttling   
across the pinks and golds of the morning sky. Morning. The morning   
of the first day of a life without Mulder? No. This was not true.   
Would not be true. The dream had meant something else. It had to.  
  
Under the thin fabric of the hospital gown, her slender shoulders   
squared. Her chin lifted. She willed him, wherever he was, to hear her.   
Fingers reached to trace the shape of a cloud on the cool glass.  
She whispered, part prayer, part vow, "I believe, Mulder. I believe."  
  



End file.
